After being plagued by possession all his life, Kyle Barnes lives in self-imposed exile in his childhood home in the small town of Rome, West Virginia. Despite the objections of his sister, Megan, Kyle is determined to lead a solitary life, believing he has brought pain to his family. But circumstances intervene when the town is rocked by the possession of a young boy. Kyle reluctantly joins forces with a local reverend to help the child, whose circumstances mirror events in Kyle's own past.

Vicki Hyman

Outcast is incredibly visceral, both in its scenes of demonic possession and in the punch-happy tactics of the titular amateur exorcist. But it's also a tense, meditative psychological drama about trauma, redemption and belief, with nuanced performances throughout and a grim but arresting visual style that is not without flashes of humor.

Ed Bark

Outcast is beautifully composed cinematically, with a conveniently nearby woods providing an extra layer of creepiness. By the end of the initial four episodes, a spellbinding hook has been set, with the mythology enticingly unfolding amid week-to-week new vistas in exorcism.

Chris Cabin

When more and more possessions begin to pop up in Rome, a series of events that Kyle believes is directly related to him, he is partnered with a priest, Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister), and the series becomes an equally fascinating contemplation of the basic usage and worth of religion.

Melanie McFarland

Fugit depicts Barnes with the scraggly desperation of a starving, wounded animal. With his poignant portrayal securely holding each hour’s center, Outcast quickly mutates from a creepfest into a tragedy about doubt, coping and human frailty.

Matthew Gilbert

The cast and the emotional back story in Outcast are compelling, and so is the growing sense that Kirkman is using his tale of demonic possession--based on his own “Outcast” comic book series--as a broad allegory of domestic abuse. Behind the predictable trash-talking demon with beady eyes, there’s an interesting drama about facing what haunts you.

Tom Long

Ben Travers

The acting doesn’t carry the story as much as its mysterious long-term goals (outside of layered portrayals from Wrenn Schmidt and David Denman, great individually and as a couple), but therein lies the most promising aspect of Outcast.

Gail Pennington

David Wiegand

The show’s structure is smart in many ways, giving us more immediate satisfaction as individual stories play out, while piling on layers of mystery about many of the characters. Kirkman does it so well that we almost miss the fact that several subplots are pretty timeworn.

Jeff Jensen

Nick Schager

In its second and third episodes, the material periodically drags to a crawl while laying the bedrock foundation for forthcoming action. And its habit of leaving key details and interpersonal dynamics vague borders on irritating. Though it resumes building momentum by the end of its fourth chapter, there’s a sense that the show requires somewhat more vigorous storytelling.

Dorothy Rabinowitz

Matt Roush

This is the sort of unrelenting frightfest that finds menace in objects as ordinary as a Hummel figurine. Before long, you may cringe whenever anyone goes to open a closet or pantry door. [6-19 Jun 2016, p.19]

Ken Tucker

The show is beautifully shot and well-directed, and the premiere’s opening scene with Jacob is truly jolting. But the series suffers from the context surrounding it: The netherworld is all over TV, in A&E’s just-canceled Damien, on Fox’s Lucifer, and the fall-TV remake of The Exorcist. As a result, Outcast feels overly familiar, something it shakes only in a subplot involving Kyle’s sister, played very well by Wrenn Schmidt (Boardwalk Empire), who has a haunted past of her own.

Hank Stuever

Despite good performances, there are plenty of ways that the dialogue and pacing of Outcast still feel too much like a comic book. The four episodes provided to critics don’t indicate just how complex the overall plot is or how expertly the story will treat matters of faith.

Dan Fienberg

midst Kirkman's banality-of-evil fixation is the potential for very real banality, and after four episodes sent to critics, Outcast has already fallen frequent victim to the wheel-spinning and superficial characters that have often bogged down lesser moments of The Walking Dead and nearly every moment of Fear the Walking Dead. Directed with some flair by Adam Wingard (The Guest), the Outcast pilot has some promise, but subsequent episodes fail to maintain that momentum.

Neil Genzlinger

The problem for this series, besides making Kyle someone we care enough about to keep watching, will be finding original ways to cast out demons. By the end of the premiere, we’ve already had an “Exorcist” scene, and as the show goes along, Anderson does the cross-and-scripture thing we’ve seen a zillion times.